How to Make Seed Bombs Recipe

February 2, 2018

Making this Seed Bombs Recipe is quick and easy – it is a great gardening for kids activity and also makes a good gift that kids can make. I particularly like to give Seed Bombs as Easter Gifts or on Mother’s Day! You can actually make these at any time of year, but you “use” the seed bombs depending on the flower type you have chosen – usually early Spring to late Summer – check your seed packets! Seed Bomb making also is a great sensory activity as you encourage you kids to get stuck in!

These DIY Seed Bombs, were first published in February 2014 and republished for your convenience

Seed Bomb Recipe:

RED TED ART TV

A cup of compost

A cup of clay or potter’s powder (this can be store bought or dug up from your garden if you live in a clay rich area)

A generous handful of wild seeds

Water

Seeds – you can use any types of seeds really – but you should aim for a combination of seeds that grow at the same time of year. And then “lob” your bombs in the appropriate season – i.e. add Spring seeds and distribute in early Spring, or add Summer seeds and distribute in late Spring etc.

You just “throw them” wherever takes your fancy. The fact that they are mixed with compost and soil gives them growing conditions that allow them to “grow”. You have to pick wild flowers to include in your seeds, as these do best in rough conditions…. Having said that, I think it is best to throw them were there is a little soil already, so that they can get a better “footing”, if that makes sense!

A few mentionables to remember to improve bombing success:
1. use these almost right away.
2. Lob 1 day before a guaranteed rainstorm.

WHY? By exposing the seed to water during the mixing you have activated them. They try to germinate and if no further watering occurs, they die even before cracking the shell and nothing happens. This is a waste. The rain softens the clay to let the germinating stem out and the moisture helps.

3. Make that clay shell as thin as possible/keep clay composition to a minimum. At best the bomb explodes on soil contact. Good. If the seed can’t get out there was no point.

4. Say NO to that generous handful of seeds, even if different types. Plants don’t do well in close quarters; they compete! If no one is around to weed them they get spindly and die off. Seriously, no more than 10 seeds per ball.
5. Plants compete with each other. Make seed bombs of one type each, then lob two or three types in one spot. Works better.
6. Some seeds require light to germinate, so buried in the middle of a clay ball does not work. Read your seed packets. Stick light-requiring ones along the outside of the ball.

All my bombing experiments were more successful after this -I know because I stuck around to watch them grow, not just bomb and never visit again.
Happy plant attack!!!!!